If you think you’re having a rough start to the week, flip through the portfolio of photojournalist Lynsey Addario. The images Addario captures may not inspire you directly per se but, at least you’re not one of the victims in some of her photos. What she is doing is completely mind blowing to me. As a photographer, I live to capture moments as intense and raw as these but at what cost? It looks that Addario really puts her life on the line to capture images and stories that she can share with the rest of the world. Here’s a snippet of who Lynsey Addario is taken from her website’s bio:

Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist based in New Delhi, India, where she photographs for The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine.

Lynsey began photographing professionally in 1996-with no professional photographic training or studies-and started photographing conflict and humanitarian issues. In 2000, she traveled to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to document life and oppression under the Taliban. She has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, and Congo, and shoots features across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.

Addario’s work is NSFW. I selected images that would compliment this blog’s style. But be warned, there is a lot of gruesome photos. I honestly can’t put her work into words. It’s an experience that made my heart drop, eyes widen with jaw on the floor.

Photography like this is incredible to me for one simple reason: the act of taking the photo, of framing a shot, pressing a button, and doing it an infinite number of times again and again is really secondary to everything else going on. It’s the easy part. But getting there, being there, understanding the story, staying safe, dealing with the emotions (and often shutting them off completely), staying focused… THAT is the challenge. Anyone can press a button and take a photograph. But how many of us would be willing to do any of the other parts at a huge risk to your life? Few, I’d guess.

@Nick @MG33 – I try and try and try to imagine but it’s impossible. I feel a lot of people forget what goes into making photos. Example, you’ll see photos of Everest excursions all the time but… imagine being the photographer who has to carry that much more weight than everyone else. Or just the film crew in general. The human body and mind are simply amazing machines.

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daniel the dallas plebe says:

I’ve seen a little of what they’re going through when I was in Afghanistan. It’s almost barbaric over there. There’s a lot of good people, but there isn’t very much rule over the bad ones so a lot of horrible things happen to the good ones. I love this set BTW!